More Fake Convoys from Gearbest.

The oem just took good parts left on the shelf from the last production run and put them together with some crappy new manufactured parts… :confused:

No one will ever know what happened, who made them, who bought them from who.

This is China we are talking about, they have stolen the song from Frozen, for Christ’s sake, changed it a little and are using it as the winter Olympic song. So don’t expect anything legit.

Marc

I suspect it is a B-grade host fitted with a fake driver and unknown emitter.

It obviously has the exact same switch and switch PCB that came with the fake S2+.
At least the spacer washer is not corroded like on the S2+.
I do not own other Convoy C8s to compare with, is it normal to a have a 17mm switch assembly in these?
It has to be manually centered while tightening the ring.

Think of how many people think they have a real 1965 Pontiac GTO when it is just a dressed up Lemans, but they are happy, so who cares?
Or all the fake Shelby Mustangs that have been made through the years and sold as real.

Anyway, back to our show and the Convoy Clone problem at hand.
So many of these vendors do not see the product other than when they are originally placing the first order.
Now another drop shipper contacts them and says “we have some Convoy overstock for $x.xx which is less than they paid for the last batch, and tells them Yes, it is identical. So they place the order.

Then the product drop ships to the customer, the really sharp customers see the difference, test the difference and raise Holy Heck.
The other customers got a Red flashlight, it’s really bright and they don’t care about the fancy box, so all is well in their world.
Only after 5-10 of these complaints from the sharp customers do they then realize that they have been had and have a problem on their hands.
Now, how quickly can they stop the supply line and change vendors?
The bogus C8’s probably came from the same jobber as the Red S2+

Bottom line is, they will work it out and get these out of their supply chain.
It will likely get worse before it gets better in that there are a lot of orders in transit, so next 3-4 weeks these things are still going to be getting delivered.
Gearbest is not sticking their head in the sand as some other vendors have done in the past with these kinds of problems, so they are trying.

If you stick around here long enough or in this hobby in general, this will not be the last clone you will receive. Nature of the beast.

Just the way I see it, YMMV
Later,
Keith

Still looking. I like to know where these stories originate — or if the info has subsequently been deleted, what details can be retrieved.

I have been trying to stay out of this but I agree with Keith. 99% of the time the reseller does not even touch the product. Often times the wholesaler does not even see the product except at the outset when they make a purchase because they order by the hundreds sometimes even thousands.

When I was importing equipment that happened to us. The initial stuff was good and legit and then some junk got slipped in. It was caught but it was a hassle all the way around for us and our supplier. Why did the supplier send that stuff to us? Easy - there was deal on the "exact same stuff" and they thought they could make some money by increasing sales. Happens all of the time. Not just in China. Japan, Korea, India (the worst of the worst), Germany, Italy...ANYBODY and ANY PLACE that deals with manufactured products to be resold.

It sucks but that is why a person should know what they are buying but there is only a small percentage that ever does. The rest are happy :)

This is not all on Gearbest. As long as they make good that is all that matters.

I have discovered that it’s two different customer care support at GB. The people that are on this forum, and the support people.
Via support ticket, I was only offer 100% refund in store credit, or 50% on my paypal account, no offer for new product.

Via Karen (Gearbest) user here at BLF, I got two possibles, refund or new product. So since the Convoy S2+ is a good flashlight, I will try to get new products, and hope the new ones is real.

And you are right about “shit hitting the fan” for some weeks now for GB, for all S2+ and C8 they have shipped the last three-four weeks, are most likely false. So many refund/new product request is going their way now.
And bad PR here on this forum.

Gearbest hasn’t had a good week.

Post 202 and 203 for info about their ex employee

OK, that shows it was Simon from Convoy (202) who gave the info about an old buyer, and then GearBest (203) gave a nonspecific “if” with directions on how to follow up.

We can hope the old buyer who "left his post" wasn't promoted (grin).

I don't see GB admitting they bought and sold fakes there, they're saying "if" someone had "trouble" with a convoy, if it was "defective"....

Now that's not exactly the problem here. And they offer a refund "to your GB wallet" -- also not exactly a refund.

It would be reassuring to hear someone at GB admit they bought and sold cheap fakes and tell us GB doesn't normally make that a business practice.

Good enough, thank you. I just wanted to be sure who said what, and who didn't.

Hey, I'm a nitpicker. Doing that is part of the basic primate social contract.

I would agree with all of this but two things, in the past i have run a retail business. First if someone offers you the exact same product for less you ask yourself why. Why when I negotiated what I thought was the best price am I suddenly being offered the product for less?

And secondly If one company sells more fake products than other companies they are either careless or they know what’s going on.

Okay, since you choose to get the new products instead of getting the refund, I hope you will understand about the underlying risk better now if you’ve learned something out of your previous experience in this thread,

Gearbest is willing to look into this issue, which is something encourage-able. But I believe there still come with a certain risk that you will be shipped with fake products because some of the Gearbest staffs really know nothing about the product at all, not that Gearbest intentionally tries to cheat their customers. So if that happens I hope you won’t be angry about it in public again but just keep it to yourself - I’m not saying that it is your fault, but you should understand about the risk better now as a buyer, you are informed already, that’s my point.

I don’t mind Ken letting us know of his experiences, so long the discussion is calm.

However I would have accepted nothing less than a full refund to my PayPal. Then buy quality products. Especially if you want to sell them. You don’t want to have a house fire on your hands.

Marc

It must be allowed to inform the forum if they still is sending out fake S2+ and/or C8 now after so many weeks they have known?

But, instead of buying S2+ and/or C8, here is a list over flashlights I may buy instead. Some of them I already have got, and have checked them out, and they are real, some I’m waiting for, and some I have not got yet.
And maybe there is other flashlights that should be on that list? https://budgetlightforum.com/t/-/34917

I agree with Marc that if the discussion is calm then yes, I am always interested to hear your feedback about the products and services. :slight_smile:

Have you seen me not be calm, without the one thread where I was so pissed about their trying to censor me and the BLF forum?
I think all of my threads and post (beside that thread) has always been calmed and telling facts.

I will give Gearbest.com a change to correct their errors. If I can get new products thats is real, I’m happy with that. I really like the S2± But of course, paying Simon is not so much more.
So I give them a change with the first two S2+ now. If I get the other items I have ordered before I got the new items (make sense that I do) then I will maybe ask for a paypal refund, and get the flashlights from Simon.

This thread needs to die. It is not serving any purpose but perpetuating ill feelings towards Gearbest AND even BLF members.

Here are some facts:

  • Simon was invited here by a BLF member to verify fakes and protect his brand that has a good name (name promised not to be mentioned)
  • Gearbest fully cooperated with Simon
  • The Gearbest employee was removed for making the to good to be true purchase and not for unscrupulous behavior (mistakes in China do not get forgiven)
  • There were many many ordered products already in the pipeline which can take as long as 45 days to reach the destination (not that they keep selling them)
  • A new BLF member made many uneducated purchases and then found BLF and then saw his errors (Buyer Beware should always be the rule - know exactly what your buying or accept the risk or better yet....BUY only one to test)
  • Marcl believes he has a fake and is is getting it remedied
  • Mitko believes he may have a couple fake units but would like to buy 10 more because they are not that bad

The point is that the point has been made. Everybody has been warned. There are many Convoy counterfeits out there and Simon already warned us months ago. Anything else is nothing but bashing. We all know that problems can be handled via CSgearbest or Gearbest here on BLF.

Enough....please.

My issue with only ordering one at the time, is that it can take 15-50 days before it come here. And if I want to sell this item, have to wait 15-50 days more to get the next shipment. And in that time, maybe the price has gone up etc.
I think this thread should be open to we know that GB is only sending out real S2+ and C8 flashlights. Then it has no purpose anymore.

I think you are getting mixed up. This is NOT the S2 thread.

It does not need to die. It would be nice to see who gets real and who gets fake Convoys over the coming weeks.

Marc

My last convoy was c8 series from FT,since simon open his store at AX i only buy directly from him

It’s also important to know when were these purchased? If gearbest really cleared out their fake convoy stock some time ago since the S2+ incident (as they said) then convoy lights ordered from that time on should be genuine…